The present invention relates to antimicrobial gloves and a method of manufacturing such gloves, and more particularly to antimicrobial gloves for food handlers that are made of triclosan and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), where the gloves are formed by cold dipping glove molds in a plastisol of PVC, triclosan, a plasticizer and a stabilizer.
The food industry is concerned about bacterial contamination and workers in the industry are frequently required to wear protective gloves to reduce the likelihood that the bacteria from their hands will be transmitted to food. However, the protective gloves may pick up contaminating bacteria from food or work surfaces they touch, thereby significantly reducing the effectiveness of the gloves the longer they are worn. A solution, albeit a costly one, is to have the workers change or disinfect their gloves frequently. The food industry would prefer a more workable and cost effective solution.
The gloves used by the food industry are typically made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), are seamless to reduce the risk of seam failure, and meet federal standards for thickness, strength, elasticity, deformation, etc. Gloves of other materials have been tried, but they either do not meet the federal standards or are not acceptable to the food industry (e.g., high cost, not seamless, difficult to don and remove, uncomfortable to wear, etc.).
Seamless PVC gloves are typically made by dipping glove molds in a low viscosity PVC plastisol (a liquid mixture of the glove material that gels to form the gloves), and machines for dipping the glove molds are well known in the art.
Antimicrobial agents are well known and it would be desirable to provide protective gloves used in the food industry with an antimicrobial agent that provides long lasting protection. However, the industry had been unable to find an antimicrobial agent that meets federal standards for food handling, that can be used with PVC gloves, and that will effectively reduce the risk of bacterial contamination during prolonged wear of the gloves carrying the agent. For example, conventional PVC gloves may be dusted with an antimicrobial agent, but the agent would not be effective for prolonged periods because it would rub off during use and disappear completely when the gloves are immersed in water.
A potential solution is to mix an antimicrobial agent into a plastisol. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,091,442 issued Feb. 25, 1992 to Milner suggests that an antimicrobial agent, such as triclosan, may be mixed with a natural rubber latex plastisol to provide antimicrobial protection for a tubular article such as a condom or catheter. However, the effectiveness of the antimicrobial agent in the article will still diminish during use because the agent will gradually disappear from the surface of the article and will not be replenished. That is, the triclosan will be removed from the surface of the natural rubber latex long before the latex wears down to expose the triclosan in the interior thereof. The nature of the natural rubber latex prevents the antimicrobial agent from migrating to the exposed surface of the latex from its interior. This limitation may be acceptable where the article makes a single contaminating contact, but is not acceptable for gloves that will have numerous contacts with diverse potential contaminants.
The Milner patent mentions that PVC may be used instead of the natural rubber latex, but does not suggest how this is to be done. The method disclosed relates only to natural rubber latex, and the differences between latex and PVC preclude the application of the disclosed method to PVC.
It has also been suggested that an antimicrobial agent may be added to a plastic or polymeric film material, such as PVC, that is used to make a surgical drape sheet. The structure of the PVC allows some antimicrobial agents to migrate to the exposed surface of the drape from the interior thereof when the agent has been removed from the surface (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,907 issued Dec. 3, 1991 to Mixon, et al.). However, the process and the plastisol used therewith for making a sheet of plastic or polymeric material are not suitable for dipping gloves. In the sheet making process a high viscosity paste is extruded through a sheet feeder at high temperature. As discussed above, the glove dipping process uses a low viscosity plastisol.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide novel protective gloves and a method of making protective gloves that obviate the problems of the prior art.
It is another object of the present invention to provide novel protective gloves and a method of providing antimicrobial protection to such gloves in which an antimicrobial agent in the glove material migrates to the exposed surfaces of the gloves when the agent at the glove surface has been depleted.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a novel method of making seamless protective gloves for the food industry from a plastisol that includes triclosan and PVC.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a novel method of making protective gloves in which triclosan antimicrobial agent is mixed with a PVC plastisol before the gloves are formed by a cold dip process whereby the triclosan migrates to the exposed surfaces of the gloves when the triclosan at the surface has been depleted.
These and many other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims, the appended drawings, and the following detailed description of preferred embodiments.